


The Clever Hopes Expire

by blueink3



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF John, Brotherly Love, Family, Hurt John, Kidnapping, M/M, Misunderstandings, Parentlock, Protective Mycroft, Retirement, Reunions, Series 4 Doesn't Exist, Vulnerable Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-10-27 22:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17775122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueink3/pseuds/blueink3
Summary: What if, after Sherlock took off in the plane, a broadcast of Jim Moriarty's face was never played and the plane never turned around?What if Sherlock survived, but retired from the world upon his return?What if John Watson never knew, but needed him again anyway?What if?





	1. Prologue: Rosie

**Author's Note:**

> Series 4 doesn't exist other than the fact that Rosie's name is Rosie. It's an AU after the tarmac.

She is six-years-old when her world falls apart, though if you asked her, she’d probably tell you she’s nearly seven. Her birthday is in February and it’s October so it’s close enough to round up. Her father always told her she was wise beyond her years, which was all the permission she needed to be a little bit flexible with the details.

Yes, up until that point, life was pretty good. She liked school and enjoyed reading. She had a best friend named Naomi and her eye on a puppy at a local shelter that she met on a field trip. Negotiations to adopt him had stalled, but she hadn’t lost hope. She had a Nana that snuck her treats and a Dad she utterly adored and a Mum that was gone more than she was there, so she made do. She liked porridge for breakfast and turkey and cheese sandwiches for lunch. She liked Indian for dinner and pudding for dessert, which she only got when she’d been very, very good.

All in all, it wasn’t bad.

But she’s six, maybe seven, depending on who you ask, when her father crashes through her door in the middle of the night. Her scream is swiftly silenced by his large, warm hand.

“You’ve got to be very quiet, Rosie,” he says, soft but firm, and she nods against his palm, clammy from her breath. Her eyes are wide and her heart is pounding, but Daddy cups her cheek and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“What’s going on?”

“There are some bad people coming.”

“Here?” she squeaks, because this is home. It’s the safest place in the world.

“Yes, love, and I need to get you somewhere safe.” He throws the covers back and scoops her in his arms. The air is cool on her unprotected legs.

“Where’s Mummy?”

“Not here,” he grunts as he lifts her and carries her to the door.

“Is she with her friends again?”

She can hear him swallow where her head is tucked into his neck. It sounds like a gulp. “Yeah, sweetheart, I think she is.”

A bang sounds from downstairs and he turns into the hall closet and puts her down, taking hold of her shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “Remember what I told you, sweetheart? The name I told you to remember?”

“Uh huh,” she replies, lower lip already wobbling because she doesn’t like this. She doesn’t like this one bit.

“I want you to stay in here.” He gestures to the door of the crawl space just above the shelf where they keep the spare linens. She’s always hated it, it’s drafty and scary, but too much is happening at once and she doesn’t even remember to remind him that she doesn’t like the dark. He pushes his mobile into her hand and the glow of the screen briefly lights up her face. “Stay here until it’s quiet for a whole hour. Then I want you to find that name and call that number, okay?”

“Okay,” she replies even as tears spill onto her cheeks.

“Yeah? I need to do this for me, Rosie. I need to know you’re safe.”

“Yes, I can do it,” she replies, sounding much more sure than she feels.

“Oh my brave girl,” he whispers, wiping her tears with his thumbs. “Whatever happens, whatever you hear, don’t come out, okay? That’s very important. Even if it sounds -” he stops and licks his lips, forehead creasing. He looks upset. “Even if it sounds like bad things are happening, stay put. Please, for me.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she whispers. She doesn’t like it when he’s upset.

He stands to open the door and his t-shirt rides up, showing the gun he has tucked into the waistband of his pajamas. She gasps and promptly clamps a hand over her mouth, but Daddy doesn’t seem to hear.

“How long are you waiting?” he prompts.

“One hour of quiet,” she dutifully responds, but her eyes remain on the weapon strapped to her father’s back.

“And who are you calling?” He turns around, forcing her to meet his gaze once more.

“Mycroft Holmes.”

“Good girl,” he whispers, pressing a hard kiss to her forehead, before gathering her in his arms. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Daddy.”

She hears another bang from downstairs, this one louder, and he tenses, lifting her deftly into the crawlspace, before reaching up and cupping her cheek in his palm.

“So, so much,” he whispers, before he secures the door in place, plunging her into darkness once more. She’s shaking, and she knows it’s not just from the cold. Panic claws at her throat, like it did on the first day of school and the day of the talent show and the night she woke up to hear Mum and Daddy screaming downstairs.

There are more bangs and she flinches with every single one. There’s a shout and the sound of scuffling. Then a noise that makes her blood run cold. She’s seen enough James Bonds to know what a gunshot sounds like.

The scuffling stops after that.

She shakes in the cold and holds her breath until she physically can’t. Then she gasps and starts all over again. She can still hear people in the house. They must be the bad people because there’s more than one so it can’t be Daddy.

She heard a gunshot. And the bad people are still here.

Tears run swift and hot down her face, but she doesn’t make a sound because she promised.

_“Please, for me.”_

And she is nothing if not John Watson’s daughter.

Footsteps, soft and light on the carpet, ascend the stairs. They check her parents’ room first before passing by the closet and heading into hers. An innocent part of her hopes they don’t mess up her blanket fort and the other part hopes they step on the mousetrap behind the door.

“Where’s the kid?” a voice says and she inhales.

“Sleepover, she said.” _Who said?_

“Her bed’s not made.”

“Look, I know what I was told. She’s not here.”  

The footsteps come closer and she forces tension into her muscles solely so she stops trembling. She clasps a hand over mouth and holds her father’s mobile in her sweaty palm like the lifeline it is.

The light in the closet is turned on and it seeps through the cracks in the tiny square door she hides behind.

_“Please, for me.”_

She doesn’t move, she doesn’t whimper, she doesn’t breathe.

The footsteps move away and the light is switched off. Air rushes from her lungs with a whoosh, leaving her lightheaded and nauseous. There’s a bit more banging before the front door is opened and then shut once more.

For the first time since her father came bursting into her room, there is silence.

When she finally lights it up, the mobile reads 01:03, but she remains where she is with only her own uneven breathing for company until the digital numbers creep by to 02:04. It’s been quiet for a while now. Well over the designated hour.

Eventually her need for the toilet is the driving force that gets her trembling fingers to reach for the door. She pops it from its frame and winces as it crashes down to the carpeted floor. Pulling herself from the crawl space with strength she does not have, her wobbly legs find purchase on the shelf and she clings on until she can lower herself enough to land semi-gracefully on the floor. The mobile falls and she promptly picks it up, entering her father’s password and telling her heart not to hurt when she sees the home screen - a photo of them at the park this past summer.

She scrolls to H and her finger hovers over ‘Mycroft Holmes’ but before she can press the name she was forced to memorize almost as soon as she learned her letters, the phone slips from her grasp as a gloved hand clamps down over mouth, muffling her scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- WOW it's hard to write from the POV of a 6-(almost 7)-year-old. This will likely be the only chapter told from Rosie's POV, in case that turns you off. Don't worry. Our favorite detective is up next.  
> 


	2. Prologue: Sherlock

_“Six months, my brother estimates. He’s never wrong.”_

But he had been. He’d made it a year. Through sheer force of will, he survived six months longer than his brother had anticipated. A decent amount of spite might have also fueled his endeavors, but he chalked it up to will power and deductive reasoning on paper.

Jumping out of a cake wasn’t on his list upon that return. He’d been beyond fake moustaches and bad accents - he’d gotten too good at disguises while away. Anything less than his utmost dedication would feel… mocking. A slap in the face to those that didn’t make it back.

He was one of the few. The lucky, he might say, if he believed in such things.

The plane ride out, with the ghost of John Watson’s palm print pressed to his mouth, was disgustingly simple. Turbulence free, even. If he was going to his death, he’d rather it be on his own terms, preferably with a crash over a deserted island where he could have truly lived out his pirate fantasies.

But it wasn’t to be.

It was never tedious, he’ll give it that. He got captured in Uzbekistan and the resulting weeks made Serbia look like a seaside resort specializing in yoga and whole grains. That was around month seven, the lowest of the lot, when he had truly thought _This is it. This is how I die._ He’d cheated Death so many times before, perhaps He had finally come to collect His due. And in that moment, those many soul-shattering, gut-wrenching moments, he could only think of one thing:

_“John, there’s something I should say. I’ve meant to say always and then never have.”_

Sometimes he feels like his life is one long series of wasted opportunities. He could have the proof of it drawn up in triplicate.

He made it out by the grace of a higher power he still claims not to believe in, but like the apostles before him, he’s having doubts. He finished his mission and found himself on another plane, this time heading home with the ghost of more than just John Watson’s palm. John will never know it, but he’d been with Sherlock through every step of that journey.

Still, there was no French waiter routine. Upon his return, he’d spent two months in physical therapy, trying to regain the motor function he’d lost due to his haphazard attempts at healing while away. He spent a further six months meeting with a trauma specialist twice a week.

He didn’t ask about John Watson until he ran out of things to occupy his mind and body with.

He remembers it as clearly as if it had been yesterday, standing in the door to his brother’s office, nearly caving under the weight of the Belstaff that had finally (mercifully) been placed on his still-boney shoulders.

_“Into battle.”_

“Where is he?” he had asked.

Mycroft didn’t even bother looking up. “Where he’s always been.”

Sherlock remained silent and stooping, like a gargoyle of Notre Dame.

“Brother, you’ve been back for nearly a year. Last time, you were back barely an hour before - ”

“Well, this isn’t last time, is it? You saw to that,” he snapped and Mycroft’s jaw tightened.

“Sherlock - ” he began, pitying and hateful, and Sherlock’s anger had spiked.

“Where is he? Right now? I know you know!”

It was hardly ever a battle of wits with them, but rather wills. Who could cave first? But Sherlock, who had just spent two years trying to hold out as long as possible was simply… tired.

“I wanted to be… whole,” he admitted, “when I saw him.”

And his brother had stared at him for a moment, something passing across his face that Sherlock would never admit looked like heartbreak, before returning his gaze to his paperwork.

“He’s at the park. St. James’s. You’ll find him by the lake. They’ll be feeding the pelicans around this time.”

 _They?_ He didn’t voice his question, but he couldn’t deny that he had no desire to see Mary Watson that day. Or any day, for that matter.

“Ms. Morstan is not with them,” Mycroft murmured, continuing to use her maiden name when it wasn’t even real to begin with.

Oh. _Them._ Must be the child.

_“Sherlock is actually a girl’s name.”_

She'd be nearly two by then. 

“Thank you,” he managed, before making his exit and walking the thirty minutes or so to one of his favorite places in London that could very well turn out to be his heaven or his hell.

His arrival lacked pomp and circumstance and it would have been a wasted effort anyway. After all, it didn’t take long to find them.

He sucked in a breath and held it, just watching the tableau before him. Hell it is then.

John was sitting on the grass with the child toddling between his legs, running to pick up a stick or a rock and show him as if it was the first stick or rock that John Watson had ever laid eyes on. And because he was a good father, he acted as if it was, gracing the child with a look of utter amazement.

He used to look at Sherlock like that.

John’s laugh carried across the lake and each beat of it poked a hole in Sherlock’s already fragile heart. Its cadence battered at his gates and the way John threw his head back, sunlight catching the strands of his silver hair, tore down his parapets. His wedding ring winked at him, coding out a message Sherlock knew only all too well.

“He’s happy,” he had said to Mycroft upon his return not an hour later.

“Is he?” Mycroft had asked, looking at him hard. Forcing him to see what Sherlock was convinced he already knew.

Sherlock never replied, though. His fingers ghosted over the key in the envelope hidden away in his pocket and he turned without another word.

But that was then and this is now.

He walks with a slight limp these days and when it rains, his shoulder aches something wicked. New scars line his body, intersecting with the old ones, pink on white on red: a morbid bouquet of wilting flowers. He still has sessions with his therapist via video chat, but it’s only as needed. And it’s needed less and less as the days go on.

Now, he calls Sussex home, with the buzz of the bees in the yard and the sea salt in the air making his curls do all manner of impossible things. He has a schedule these days. He wakes around eight in the morning, makes tea, and putters with the newspaper. He does his PT stretches in the living room whose windows overlook the hives. He has more tea and then dons his beekeeping suit, ready to check on the kingdom he shares with a Queen he’s named Lola.

When he’s content that his bees are content, he does any manner of chores. A bit of cleaning, a bit of laundry, perhaps a trip to the shops if he’s running low on milk or eggs. If only John could see him now.

But he doesn’t think of John Watson. Not if he can help it. Unlike Baker Street, the cottage is full of sunlight, with wide windows not inhibited by thick curtains and pale blue paint reflecting the light off of the relatively low ceilings. The hearth is nearly always lit and the kettle is always boiled. He doesn’t ever expect company, but one can only spend so many months in a dark basement before one begins craving the opposite.

 _“The game is over,”_ John had said, standing next to a plane that would summarily alter Sherlock’s life.  

 _“The game is never over, John,”_ he had replied, naively. Pretentiously. Omnisciently. And he hadn’t been wrong. He just didn’t feel like playing anymore.

He’s pulling on his wellies, because the garden does get rather muddy, when he hears the squeak of a brake outside. He pauses, hackles up, because he’s not listed and he orders things online under a pseudonym. And even when his packages are delivered, the mailman comes on foot down the narrow lane. No cars should be stopping outside of his house save for his own.

He stands with a wince (didn’t try hard enough at this morning’s PT) and limps to the curtain, pulling it back fractionally and feeling a swoop in his stomach at the nondescript, yet familiar black sedan.

“Bastard,” he mutters, moving towards the door and throwing it open before his brother can make it up the walk. “I had one rule!” he bellows, sending the redpolls on his bird feeder scattering to the sky.

Mycroft stops his advance, but remains steadfastly on the path. He looks different yet the same. It’s an impressive feat considering Sherlock hasn’t laid eyes on him in five years.

He had made one caveat, one exception, when he wrote his address down on a piece of paper with the succinct and irrefutable command that he was not to be bothered. Mycroft was not to come to him, but for one reason and one reason only.

A cloud covers the rare peek of sun, throwing their standoff into cool shades of grey.

“Time to come out of retirement, baby brother,” Mycroft murmurs, looking like he hates every word that comes out of his mouth.

“What for?” he asks, even as his stomach drops. Even as he takes in the lines on his brother’s face and the wrinkles in his suit. Even as he finally glances at the car and realizes that his brother has not come alone.

A blonde head watches him carefully from the backseat, eyes so like her father’s barely able to see out the window.

Mycroft shifts and holds his umbrella in a white-knuckled grip.

“Your one caveat, regrettably, has come to pass.”


	3. Prologue: Mycroft

_ “Since this is likely to be the last conversation I’ll have with John Watson, would you mind if we took a moment?” _

_ Oh, Sherlock.  _

Mycroft had wanted him to have more hope than that, but his brother was nothing if not a pragmatist. He knew exactly where he was being sent. And who was doing the sending. 

But Mycroft merely raised his eyebrows, haughtiness firmly intact, hating himself more and more with every step he took away from Sherlock. Away to stand next to the woman proclaiming to be Mary Morstan.

The woman who put a bullet in his baby brother. 

He could have read their lips had he wanted to, but some things have earned their privacy. Some people deserve their goodbye. 

Of all of Mycroft’s many regrets, separating Sherlock Holmes from John Watson would prove to be his biggest. Of that, he had no doubt. 

He watched them shake hands, watched his brother board the plane, and take off on a journey that he truly didn’t think had a return. His heart (and yes, he did have one) grew heavier with every mile that separated them, but needs must. Sherlock had murdered someone. A very powerful someone. And this was the only penance that Mycroft was able to negotiate. 

But six months came and went and Sherlock was still alive. Mycroft hadn’t experienced much hope in his life, but he had felt the embers beginning to burn in the pit of his stomach. 

Then Uzbekistan happened. Sherlock got captured and that hope was doused swiftly and brutally. Mycroft moved heaven and hell to help, but it still took too long. He got him out but couldn’t bring him home. The mission had to be completed, no matter what blood ties the agent had to the British Government. 

Every week his phone chimed and every week he lied to John Watson. The messages never tapered off, though, even when Mycroft stopped answering them. 

Then Sherlock came back, finally. Broken in both body and spirit, but whole. Or as whole as one would expect a man to be who wasn’t supposed to return at all. 

The reminder still sends a shiver up Mycroft’s spine despite the fact that he’s the one who signed the papers to send him in the first place. 

Sherlock had returned and issued an ultimatum. If John Watson seemed happy in his new life, then he would remain a ghost. Mycroft assumed his brother’s thinking was that he had caused enough pain, but Sherlock always did play his emotions close to the vest. Especially those that concerned a certain Army doctor with a penchant for danger. 

So Sherlock waited. He healed. And Mycroft watched helplessly as he tore himself apart one spring afternoon by letting it all go. 

_ “He’s happy.”  _

_ “Is he?”  _

Some days, Mycroft thinks he should have done more. But there are some decisions his brother needs to make on his own. 

Leaving John Watson for good was one of them. 

If you asked him, Mycroft would admit nothing, but deep down, he always knew this day would come. The quarterly reports were becoming more and more oblique. More and more dire. Soon, the lid would fly off the boiling pot and there was nothing and no one that would be able to stop it. 

He just doesn’t expect the pot to explode on an unsuspecting Tuesday morning.

He’s awake despite the hour, nursing a tumbler of scotch and watching a black and white Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant film when his mobile buzzes across the side table, rattling him from his revery. 

Before he can answer it, though, he hears his front door open and he stands, switching off the television while reaching for the gun he keeps in the top drawer.

“Sir?” Anthea calls, and he relaxes, but only marginally, because it’s not often his assistant uses the key he gave her. And certainly not in the middle of the night. His phone buzzes again, but he ignores it in favor of replying, “In here,” leaving the gun alone, but standing straight as she comes hurrying through the door. On the surface, she looks like the impeccable agent she is, but Mycroft can see the stress and worry in the tightness of her eyes. 

“Reports say John Watson has been taken from the house.”

“What?” he snaps, stomach plummeting. “Why are we only just learning of this?” 

“They’re good, sir.” The  _ She’s good _ is implied. 

He doesn’t bother pulling his jacket on over the waistcoat he hadn’t yet taken off and quickly leads the way to his adjacent study, brain whirring with all kinds of questions:  _ What happened? Where is he? Where is the child? _ But most of all,  _ Why now?  _

Christ, Sherlock will never forgive him. 

He types his passcode into the keyboard and places his hand on the accompanying touchpad.

**VERIFIED: MYCROFT HOLMES** flashes across the screen before Elizabeth Smallwood’s face takes over the frame. 

“How did we miss this?” he demands. 

“They knew the time of our staff changeover. They were in and out in less than five minutes.”

Anthea immediately hands him a tablet which plays the CCTV footage from across the street, showing a person presumed to be Dr. Watson being bundled into an idling van. Going by the hunch of his body, he looks injured, though it’s unclear how badly. 

“CCTV couldn’t get a clear read on the plate,” Lady Smallwood begins, but Mycroft knows it would be useless anyway. These people are professionals. They will have switched plates if not cars by now.

He clicks the next file on the tablet and a layout of the Watsons’ house is before him, a blinking dot beckoning him from the digital blueprint. 

“The GPS on Watson’s mobile still reads on location,” Lady Smallwood explains, and Anthea offers, “Could have left it charging on a side table.” 

Mycroft looks closer at the screen, squinting hard. “No. That’s not his bedroom. That’s the hall closet.” 

Anthea purses her lips. “Why is his phone in the closet?” 

“Not only that,” Lady Smallwood says, frowning down at her own tablet, “it looks to be in the wall.” 

Mycroft’s heart leaps to attention, pounding against his sternum in a rhythm that seems to roar,  _ Go, go, go, go. _

“Get me a car. Now,” he clips, already reaching for his coat, as Anthea stares at him slack-jawed. 

“But, sir… field work.” 

“It’s John Watson’s daughter,” he says, grabbing a different gun from a different drawer and sliding the holster over his shoulders. “I will call out the bloody RAF if I have to.” 

“We’ll meet you there,” he hears Lady Smallwood say before Anthea switches the console off. 

The ride from his townhouse to the Watsons’ flat is quite possibly the longest of his life, surpassed only by the ride from the detention facility to the airfield those many years ago. He finds himself thinking of his brother, despite the fact that he tries to avoid the past time at all costs. It… is painful in a way that Mycroft does not like to admit. It’s human, and he does so hate to remember that he is but flesh and blood. 

Mycroft’s relationship with his brother is tenuous at best but it will be irreparable (if it isn’t already), if something happens to John Watson or his child. The consequences leave him feeling rather ill and he’s grateful when the journey comes to an end. 

The street is quiet, but a team is already in place. No flashing lights, no neon vests. No unnecessary attention from nosy neighbors who might do something unhelpful like call the police. 

_ Speaking of…  _ Mycroft adds Gregory Lestrade to the list of people who will have to be informed. 

Per his instructions, no one has entered the flat yet. There are no signs of a scuffle or forced entry. It doesn’t even looked like the lock was jimmied. Mycroft honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they had a key. He pulls on his gloves and carefully opens the door, letting it swing back with a creak that sounds entirely too loud in the (nearly) empty house. 

Signs of a fight are evident here. There are multiple scuffs from a black shoe on the wall and a dent in the plaster on the other side, an elbow perhaps, or a fist. Mycroft has seen the evidence of John Watson’s hand-to-hand combat and he’s honestly surprised there’s not more damage. 

But that’s when he sees the puddle of blood seeping into the fibers of the carpet, and he crouches down, sighing deeply. Incapacitated then. “I have a feeling I know to whom that belongs,” he says, “but test it to be sure.” 

There’s a thump from upstairs, as if something is falling from a decent height and, though he’s never actually stepped foot in this house before, he knows exactly where he’s going.

“Stay down here,” he orders, climbing the stairs, his polished shoes barely a whisper on the carpeted floor. His gun is a comforting weight against his side, even though his distaste for using it is strong. He knows it won’t be needed. 

He reaches the top of the staircase and turns into the closet, taking a moment to clock the tiny person in a nightgown bending down to pick up her father’s dropped mobile. He’s not sure who she’s planning on calling, but it can only complicate matters, so he moves swiftly, getting one arm around her body and bringing the other over her mouth to muffle the scream that inevitably comes. 

“You’re safe,” he whispers against the shell of her ear, keeping his hold on her trembling body soft but secure. Non-threatening. “You’re safe. I’m a friend.” 

She’s still shaking, but she manages a nod and he releases his hold enough to let her turn in his arms. It’s been a while since he’s seen her up close, but she seems to look more and more like her father with every passing year. 

“My name is Mycroft Holmes.” 

“Holmes?” she questions, head tilted, brow creasing. A name she’s heard before. 

Interesting. 

“Yes.” He doesn’t know how much of her father’s previous life she knows about. 

But then she bends down and picks up the fallen mobile, quickly hitting the screen, and before he can admonish her, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

_ Oh, clever girl. _

“Is this a test?” he asks not unkindly. 

“Yes,” she bluntly replies. 

He smiles uncharacteristically and pulls out his mobile, showing her her father’s name flashing across the screen. 

“Did I pass?” 

She nods and disconnects the call, clutching the mobile in her hand. He wouldn’t classify himself as someone who’s good with children, but he can only imagine how she’s feeling. 

“How about we get you some clothes,” he suggests, feeling a presence over his shoulder. He glances back to find Anthea hovering, face schooled into a kind expression instead of the aloof air she usually carries. “This is my colleague, Anthea. Perhaps she can help you get changed.” 

“I can get changed myself.” 

Definitely her father’s daughter, he thinks with a fond eye roll. 

“Fair enough,” he replies, standing with a wince and backing out of the closet so she can get to her room. 

“Where’s my Daddy?” she asks as she passes, pausing in the doorway and pressing the mobile closer to her chest. 

“At the moment, I do not know.” He bends down again, putting himself at eye level with her. “But we’re going to find him. And I won’t rest until we do.” 

She stares at him hard, as if weighing him, before she nods and retreats to her room. Mycroft returns downstairs and lets Anthea hover outside the door in case, despite her assurances, Rosamund Watson needs anything.  

By the time she reappears, she’s slipped into jeans and a jumper with a small bag slung over her shoulder. Mycroft doesn’t press her to disclose what she’s packed, figuring they can purchase her anything she might have forgotten. 

He makes sure the puddle of blood is covered when she comes downstairs and takes his proffered hand. It’s remarkably tiny in his own and he remembers, for all her stubbornness, just how fragile she is. 

He deposits her in the car and turns to reach for the report Lady Smallwood is handing him. 

“Ms. Morstan?” She will never be Mary Watson to him. 

“Off the grid,” Lady Smallwood replies. 

He hums and gives the report a cursory glance before watching the child stare morosely at the phone still in her hand, lighting up the homescreen and the photo it displays every time it goes dark. 

“I need to make a trip to Sussex,” he murmurs. 

Lady Smallwood gives a slight nod and a sad smile. “I thought you might.” She steps away so he can get in the car beside the child, but she leans her head in and says, “Give him my regards,” before she shuts the door and bangs the top of the vehicle. 

Rosamund is quiet and contemplative on the ride, but Mycroft can practically hear the questions buzzing just beneath the surface. She never voices them, though. Perhaps waiting for the opportune moment (or just wary of new people and places). He sets her up in one of the spare rooms and gives her some milk and biscuits that he’ll never admit are in his pantry. She gives in to exhaustion roughly an hour after she arrives and he carries her to bed, tucking her in with more care than he even thought himself capable of. 

He doesn’t sleep that night. Too full of hypotheses and tension and, yes, worry. He finishes the glass of scotch he left earlier that night and puts the old film back on, just to break the silence. He thinks of the child who’s unexpectedly been put in his care and the instruction, perhaps the  _ final _ instruction her father gave her, to reach out to him. To call Mycroft Holmes. 

The desire to do right by her, and by extension her father, nearly overwhelms him as dawn breaks over the horizon. It is his sense of duty and not at all brotherly compassion that has him heading to his desk to pull out the piece of paper Sherlock scribbled on those many years ago. It’s duty and not love that has his fingers tracing the curve of the ink, mouthing out a number and a name he had memorized long ago. 

When the time comes, he doesn’t even have to wake her, which is a relief. She’s bathed and dressed and in his kitchen before the kettle’s even boiled. 

“Where are we going?” she eventually asks after he’s bribed her to eat some eggs, watching carefully as he packs a small briefcase - armaments against the onslaught of his brother’s inevitable questioning. 

And if he thinks he’ll scare her with his answer, well, he knows she’s made of sterner stuff than that. 

“Purgatory.” 

_ Time to come out of retirement, baby brother. Here be dragons. _


	4. Prologue: John

_“Six months, my brother estimates. He’s never wrong.”_

No, no he’s not. John knew that. Which was why the next question was so devastating to ask:

_“And then what?”_

But perhaps not as devastating as the answer:

_“Who knows?”_

John knew. _He_ fucking knew. And he didn’t say anything. He didn’t stop it.

_“Since this is likely to be the last conversation I’ll have with John Watson, would you mind if we took a moment?”_

John heard that. He heard that and felt a pain like someone had taken a dull, rusty fork and slowly ate away at his heart. But he just blew out a breath and looked away because it was easier than having to see the forced nonchalance on Sherlock’s face.

William. Sherlock. Scott. Holmes. The whole of it, for John to wonder about in the middle of the night and try to parse out _why_ he didn’t know until that very moment. Why he never bothered to find out, when the man across from him had hunted down his bloody birth certificate. Sherlock had wanted to know everything there was to know about John. And John - well. John had just wanted to bask in a presence he ultimately took for granted.

He couldn’t even tell you when he was born.

_“Since it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet again, I might as well say it now.”_

And there it was again: _Unlikely we’ll ever meet again. Likely to be the last conversation I’ll have with John Watson._

Then Sherlock made a joke and John knew he was deflecting, but he let him get away with it anyway. Because he was a fucking coward. And it certainly wasn’t the first time:

_“The stuff that you wanted to say, but didn’t say it.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Say it now.”_

_“No. I’m sorry. I can’t._ ”

Two peas in an emotionally constipated pod.

 _Please come back to me,_ he remembered thinking, watching him climb the steps to that plane. _I know I’ve been greedy with miracles, but one more. One last time. Please._

But it was too late then. And it’s too late now.

He had watched the plane until it was barely a dot in the sky, and he felt Mary’s arm looped through his like a cement block dragging him under the water that lapped at his chin.

His eyes had cut to Mycroft, waiting for him to orchestrate some last minute deux ex machina, but it never came. Mycroft watched the plane nearly as long as John did, before turning and making his way back to his car.

“That’s it?” he had called and Mycroft stopped and turned, eyes narrowed and hard.

“What did you expect?” he replied, tone laced with - not blame per se - but something close. It pierced John to his core.

So much so that he blew into Mycroft’s office the next day with neither announcement nor appointment, but no one stopped him, not even Anthea.

“What’s the plan?” he demanded, but Mycroft didn’t even bother looking up from his paperwork.

“What, pray tell, are you referring to?”

John could practically feel the vein throbbing in his forehead. “Sherlock! The plan! The plan to get Sherlock back!”

Mycroft finally looked up then and carefully placed his pen down. To an outsider, he might read as vaguely annoyed but John knew better. Mycroft was furious.

“There is no plan, Dr. Watson. Sherlock murdered a man. He’s serving his sentence.”

“Serving his sentence?” he repeated, utterly at a loss.

“It’s out of my hands.”

“Nothing is out of your hands,” John snapped. “You have your fingers in everything.”

Mycroft’s expression darkened. “Thanks to you, my brother’s future, regrettably, is.”

John will always remember the way that accusation felt. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” he spit. “Do you really think your wife shot my brother to save him?”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“Of course, because why would she then threaten him again while he lay in hospital? Say to him, ‘You don’t tell John.’ Why would she do that if she was _on his side_?”

“No,” John whispered, voice hoarse, trying to keep up with the onslaught of Mycroft’s truth.

“Yes. So you knew all of this?” Mycroft began, steepling his fingers in a way that was so… Holmesian, John’s breath stuttered in his chest, “Yet you went _back!_ ”

“She’s carrying my _child_ ,” John had roared, voice echoing off the bland interior of the other man’s dungeon. “Do you think I wanted to leave him? Do you think I want to be there? We’re all playing a role, aren’t we?”

Mycroft lifted an imperious brow. “I beg your pardon?”

John gestured to him, murmuring, “Dispassionate brother,” before pointing at himself and spitting out, “Doting husband. Did you really expect me to stay with the woman who tried to murder my best friend?”

“She did murder him, Dr. Watson,” Mycroft said, rattling it off as if it were the morning weather report. “He died on the table.”

His ears rang. They rang and rang and it was incessant and all-consuming and he just wanted it to stop because _“He’s my friend. He’s my friend. He’s my friend.”_

He shook his head and clutched at his hair, backing up until his heels hit the wooden feet of the leather armchair across from Mycroft’s desk. And it was like a switch had been flicked: the fight went out of him like air from a balloon, and he collapsed into the chair, the weight of the truth pushing him into the cushions, enveloping him in leather that was cold and unyielding.

He didn’t say anything for a while, too busy trying to tame his rage, too overwhelmed trying to calm his fear. Too busy trying to assure his heart.

“What can I do?” he finally rasped. “Tell me what I can do. How do I make this right?”

Mycroft looked exhausted and he leaned back against his chair and stared at the man across from him. For the first time, John finally saw the full weight of the British Government and all that entailed pressing on his shoulders.

“Sherlock wouldn’t want you to throw away all he’s sacrificed for.”

The words winded John like a punch to the diaphragm. Because it was true: Sherlock sacrificed everything. For him. For them.

And in that moment, John hated nothing more than he hated the woman known as Mary Morstan.

“She has to pay,” he murmured and Mycroft didn’t disagree.

“You’re in a very privileged position - ” he began, and John couldn’t help it, he snorted.

“Really,” he replied, disdain dripping from the word.

“There are threats we are assessing. Persons of interest we… have a close watch on,” Mycroft said nearly delicately. “It may be safer for you, for your child, where you are.”

 _Oh Mary, what have you done now?_ John remembered thinking at the time.

“Do you think you can do that?” Mycroft prompted and John met his eye once more.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

John’s throat went tight but he managed a nod and stood to leave. He had a part to play and it would take more emotional and physical preparation than a painted on moustache and bad French accent. Still, the memory made him smile.

“He’s mine, too, you know,” he said as he reached the door, turning back one last time.

Mycroft frowned. “Your what?”

“My pressure point.” John wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and swallowed down the bile threatening to rise. “You’ll let me know? If something happens to Sher -" he stopped and swallowed, licked his lips, willing the words to come.  “Just - you’ll let me know?”

“Yes, Dr. Watson.”

And so that’s how it went. John texting Mycroft every week and Mycroft assuring him Sherlock was still alive. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and each of those one-word responses was like a shot of adrenaline to his heart.

Then his daughter was born a few weeks later and John finally had a new sun to orbit.

He watched her enter the world holding Mary’s knee instead of her hand. She was a screaming, red mess and quite possibly the most beautiful thing John had ever laid eyes on.

He caved on Rosamund, but put his foot down on the others. Rosamund Catharine Sherlock Watson. Mary pitched a fit, but John stood firm, reminding her none too gently to whom she owed her safety and freedom.

When Rosie was one, he took up boxing. He knew it was the only way he’d be able to get in bed next to his wife and not throttle her in the middle of the night. He performed his husbandly duties but barely, claiming any excuse he could find using his not insignificant medical knowledge. And when he did, he was militant about birth control. Not that he wouldn’t love another child, but another child was another chain to Mary and it was enough trouble trying to untether himself as it was.

He knew Mary knew what he was doing, but he just didn’t care. He was playing his part the only way he knew how. At that point, the goal was merely survival, especially when Mycroft stopped answering his texts asking about Sherlock. That was when John truly felt like he was losing his goddamn mind.

Mary started spending more and more time with her friends and John was past caring. Sure, he put up a brave face when she was around - they made trips to the park and the zoo like any happy, nuclear family - but he could only be grateful that Rosie was too young to pick up on tension.

Two years had passed since he missed the only opportunity he had to be true to himself for the first time in his life. Since he put Sherlock Holmes on a plane and pretended he’d be back in no time at all, popping up at Rosie’s daycare or something equally ludicrous.

Two years had passed and, deep down, John honestly assumed Sherlock was dead. But he didn’t say it. He tried not to think it. Because if he did, he would lose the battle that, every day, was slowly gaining ground.

Then when Rosie was three, Mycroft started asking odd questions. Questions like:

**Do you need anything from the shops? - MH**

It took John longer than it should have to realize it was the git’s way of asking for information.

**No, thanks. Mary went yesterday.**

And it was true, she did go yesterday, but perhaps the shops weren’t the only place she went. John could vouch that she had left the flat. And if she ever hunted through his phone, which he had no doubt she did, he hoped she would merely think Mycroft was being overly doting. He did, after all, send them a teddy bear the side of a mini-fridge on the day Rosie was born.

But the fact that something was clearly going on, despite the fact that he was being purposefully kept out of the loop, fueled a fire that had started to badly wane. He hated when Sherlock left him out, but he didn’t mind so much when it was Mycroft. After all, he had his work and his daughter. The routine got him through those days that didn’t seem to end, when he was haunted by memories of foot chases and late night takeaway and high cheekbones hidden by dark collars.

So he started to tell his daughter stories about a brilliant detective, and she listened wide-eyed and slack-jawed as he recounted their old adventures (heavily edited, of course). And when she was old enough, old enough to know there are some secrets you share with no one but each other, the brilliant detective got a name.

Sherlock Holmes.

 _“Like Mycroft!”_ she had exclaimed and a part of John died at knowing his daughter was forced to learn Mycroft’s name before Sherlock’s. Her middle names remained a mystery.

For now.  

It’s a Monday when Rosie drops her rucksack on the living room floor as John drops his keys into the dish on the table next to the front door.

“Where’s Mummy?” she asks, as she’s been doing all too frequently these days.

“With her friends, probably,” he replies distractedly, giving the post a cursory glance.  

“Oh,” comes the quiet reply and he looks up to find his daughter staring into the kitchen, at a tray of biscuits cooling on the counter. Mary’s atonement for her absence, no doubt.  

Mary and Rosie are close, like any mother and young daughter are, but Rosie’s getting older. She feels the separation more and more acutely when they come home for the fifth day in a row and Mary is not waiting.

‘Separation’ is a generous word for ‘abandonment.’

“Hey,” he begins, coming into the living room and kneeling down in front of his daughter. “Let’s build a blanket fort with the fancy quilts Mummy never lets us use, shall we?” He doesn’t mean to be the favorite; more often than not, he’s just trying to distract her from the fact that her mother isn’t here, but he dotes on her because how could he not?

He doesn’t know that his world will implode in a matter of hours.

But until then, it’s blanket forts, biscuits, Indian takeaway, and a movie she’s probably too young to see.

Until then.

He actually sleeps worse when Mary isn’t in bed than he does when she is. Her body next to him is routine by now. The norm. When she’s gone, the bed is a bit too big, the sheets a bit too cold, the room a bit too silent.

Which is why he’s able to hear the closing of a car door by someone who’s deliberately trying not to make a sound. Those skills and reflexes he honed during night patrols in the Army haven’t dulled in the intervening years. Stakeouts with Sherlock certainly helped.

He takes a moment to ponder if he’s being overly cautious or just paranoid and, deciding the line is too fine to determine, he rolls out of bed and opens his pants drawer, popping open the fake back and pulling out the gun stashed there.

Another car door shuts outside and he hurries to the window in the loo in the hall that overlooks the street, being careful not to rustle the curtains as he glances out. Three men are making their way towards the house, dressed in black, and that’s all the evidence he needs. He curses under his breath, shoves the gun in the back of his pajama trousers, and sprints down the hall, practically shoulder-checking Rosie’s door as he flies through it.

The following five minutes are a blur. Is it even five minutes? He honestly can’t tell. It feels like both a second and a century, saying goodbye to his daughter.

His brave, beautiful, darling girl.

She’s safe. She’ll be safe. She’ll call Mycroft and he’ll come get her and then, hopefully, they’ll find him.

Wherever it is that he ends up. Because he knows, try as he might, he’s not winning this fight.

He cocks his gun and creeps down the stairs, throwing himself backwards when he gets to the bottom and a fist nearly catches his nose.

It’s three against one, but he gives as good as he gets. His gun gets knocked from his hand at some point, and he takes a brutal punch to the temple which dazes him, but he surrenders to reflex and muscle memory, taking down one guy swiftly and efficiently before moving onto the next. They have both height and weight on him, but he’s scrappy, dropping low and going for pressure points -

_“Sherlock’s pressure point is his best friend John Watson.”_

_Not now,_ his mind growls.

Somehow his hand finds his gun and he fires off a round into someone’s knee, but it’s the bullet he takes to the abdomen in return that really tilts the scales. And not in his favor.

Christ, he forgot how much it hurts to get shot.

His knees buckle and the breath rushes out of him like someone is sitting on his lungs. He clasps as his right side only to realize that his hands are ineffectual at stopping the blood seeping out through his fingers.

“You fucking idiot,” he hears someone say before he tilts sideways and his face mashes into the carpet he hoovered not the day before.

_“Not your housekeeper.”_

“What does it matter what shape he’s in? As long as he lives, right?” another voice says.

_It matters._

He claws at consciousness, but the pain is making it hard to concentrate; the blood loss difficult to keep his eyes open.

He doesn’t know why, but he remembers the tarmac. Remembers the breeze on his face and the pain in his heart. He remembers Sherlock’s words, clipped and official but laced with something else. A melancholy neither of them could truly voice.

_“There’s something I should say. I’ve meant to say always and then never have.”_

John has a feeling he knows what it was, but the knowledge that he’ll never hear it said aloud in the voice he’d know at the end of the earth, irreparably shatters his already broken heart.

He thinks of Sherlock, who’s God knows where, if anywhere at all, and of Rosie, hiding upstairs and scared out of her mind. His breath is shallow, but he thinks of them. He thinks of them and is calm.

“Love you.”

It’s the last thing he remembers murmuring before it all goes black.


	5. Sherlock

_“Your one caveat, regrettably, has come to pass.”_

Sherlock continues staring at the car and the child within, inexplicably drawn to her and yet fighting the desire to run in the other direction as fast as he possibly can.

_“I had one rule!”_

One rule and one rule only. He swallows hard and finally meets his brother’s gaze. “Where is he?”

Mycroft grips his umbrella tighter and looks down. “I don’t know.”

Sherlock stares, but doesn’t see, heart hammering in a rhythm he hasn’t been forced to keep time with in far too long.

“Best come in, then,” he murmurs hollowly, as if he’s been carved out with a dull spoon. He turns but hears Mycroft say, “Come on,” before a car door opens and tiny feet patter against the stone slabs marking out the path.

His home feels far colder than it did just ten minutes ago, but he leads them into the sitting room and makes a move to stoke the fire. He can practically feel his brother’s gaze on his back and, steeling himself, he inhales a breath and turns around once more.

The little girl has Mary’s ears and nose and John’s everything else. His heart cleaves in two as he stares, thoroughly unable to look away. She is wearing jeans and a jumper which John purchased for her and her hair has been tied back in a sloppy ponytail. He has a feeling that this is also a task that usually falls to John, and John (through YouTube) has gotten rather good at it. The girl is on her own now, though, and not about to ask Mycroft Holmes for help. Not that he’d know the first thing to do anyway.

Still. It hurts to look at her. The physical embodiment of John and Mary’s union.

“Rosamund, this is my brother, Sherlock Holmes.”  

 _Right. Introductions._ He forces his face to do anything but the usual, and the minute muscles protest as they attempt to look non-threatening. _Rosamund._ Rose of the world. Not a name on John’s side of the family. _Interesting._

But the child merely frowns and cocks her head, looking him up and down with far more insight than he’d like. “Like the detective?”

His eyebrows fly up before he can help it and he shares an equally incredulous glance with his brother. “The very same,” he says carefully. What did John tell her?

A look of wonder ever so briefly crosses her face, before she schools her features into indifference once more. She’s been trained well. It breaks his heart a bit.

“You don’t look like you climb over rooftops,” she accuses, weighing him and apparently finding him wanting.

And he can’t help it, he snorts. “No, not for some time.” He fails at keeping the bitterness out of his voice entirely, but his brother flinches all the same. With his limp, he can sometimes barely climb the stairs. “What happened?” he directs at Mycroft, instead of letting his thoughts meander down that path of accountability, because if he and Rosie are here and John and Mary are not, then something decidedly catastrophic has occurred to interrupt his melancholy solitude.

“Tea first, perhaps,” Mycroft suggests, eyeing the kitchen beyond as if something grotesque is about to make its presence known.

Sherlock sighs and very nearly stomps off. Probably would have had his leg allowed him and he had been more prepared to make an exit. But Mycroft surprised him - foisted himself on Sherlock like an unwanted boil and now Sherlock has to improvise.

Funny, considering how his relationship with John began, that Sherlock is the one limping now. Funny in a way that’s not really funny at all.

“We’re wasting time,” he nearly growls as he bangs the kettle around the sink, but Mycroft very nearly ignores him.  

“Do you have anything appropriate for a child to eat?” he asks instead as he leads Rosamund over to the table in the corner. “Breakfast was rather early this morning.”

Sherlock places his hands on the counter so they don’t wrap around his brother’s neck. “I assume she likes toast and jam. She _is_ English.”

“She does,” comes a tiny, but firm voice from the corner of the kitchen and Sherlock can’t help but hide his smile as he buries his head in the cupboard. John Watson’s daughter, indeed.

“Fine, then,” he says as he turns, holding up two jars and trying to be blase about the whole thing. As if he doesn’t have the child of the man he loves and the woman who killed him for it sitting in his breakfast nook. “Strawberry or raspberry?”

“Strawberry,” she states. “Please,” she then adds as an afterthought.

He can feel her eyes track him as he limps across the stone floor, toasting homemade bread and pulling out mugs. By the time he places the tray on the table, the tea has steeped and jam is spread on the frankly delicious smelling sourdough if he does say so himself. Mycroft looks as if he wants a piece but is holding back, so Sherlock takes a bite, just to spite him, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

He should have known that his brother would choose that moment to utterly kneecap him.

“Dr. Watson was taken from his house by force at approximately 12:35 this morning.” Sherlock is smart enough to read between the lines of what Mycroft really means when he says, ‘by force.’

_He’s been injured?_

Mycroft nods.

_How badly?_

Mycroft looks away and Sherlock feels a crumb fall from his numb lip to the plate in front of him.

“And we’re sitting around having _tea?_ What the _hell_ is wrong with you?” he explodes, standing with so much momentum, the chair topples over behind him with the loud clang of wood on stone, making Rosamund jump.

“There you are,” Mycroft murmurs, leaning back and looking nearly pleased. “I was worried we’d lost you for good.”

Fury threatens to consume him but he bites back his choice comments, mindful of the child across the table.

“Rosamund, take your toast to go. We’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

“To find your father.”

She hops up as if she’s been called to attention, crumbs littering the front of her jumper, but little brow creased in determination. He feels such a pang of fondness for her that, for a moment, he flounders.

“Right… um, I’ll just change,” he eventually mutters, glancing down at himself and realizing he’s still wearing pajamas and wellies, hardly city (or rescue) attire.

London beckons and, for the first time in five years, he cannot ignore her call.

Another voice calls to him as well, a voice in a timbre of a decidedly lower register, but John Watson has been whispering to him in the back of his mind for the last ten years whether Sherlock chooses to acknowledge it or not.

The day has finally come, though, for him to respond in kind.

He’s washed, impeccably dressed, and judiciously packed in the span of 20 minutes, enough time for sodding Mycroft to enjoy his sodding tea and Rosamund to help herself to another piece of toast.

His limp is more pronounced but his spine is straight as he tosses his bag in the boot and slides into the back seat of the car, pulling his long-stored Belstaff around him like the armor it is. Rosie climbs in after him and Mycroft sits in the front beside the driver. Unfortunately, there’s no divider so Sherlock deals with this unbearable situation by staring petulantly out the window and watching his breath fog up the glass.

He watches his cottage disappear into the distance, his sanctuary, and he feels a flutter of fear for the first time in years. And so he does what he always does when he feels cornered. Out of place. Frightened.

He lashes out.

“You could have just called, instead of driving all the way out here and wasting precious time,” he snaps.

Mycroft arches a brow. “Would you have answered?”

“Yes.”

“Would you immediately have hung up?”

“Probably.”

Mycroft sighs like the long-suffering martyr he pretends to be and Sherlock has had enough.

“What. Happened,” he bites out.

His brother meets his eyes briefly in the rearview mirror before flicking his gaze over to Rosamund. “In a bit.”

So Sherlock stews in his worry, in his impatience, in his utter dread, until Rosamund’s tiny head lolls against the back of the seat, lips parted in sleep. It would have been so much faster had he drugged the jam, but he hears John’s voice in the back of his head:

_Not good, you tosser._

“Now?” he harshly whispers and Mycroft turns in his seat enough to make sure Rosamund is in fact asleep. He hums noncommittally and returns his gaze to the road ahead.

Sherlock expects him to launch into an incident report about John’s abduction, but instead he says:

“You will have to talk to her eventually, you know.”

He’s nearly affronted. “I have talked to her.”

“In depth,” is Mycroft’s reply and Sherlock nearly scoffs, yet the sound gets stuck in his throat, as if someone’s fingers are slowly but thoroughly squeezing his airway shut.

“Oh, will I?”

 _You will,_ John’s voice says.

“Sherlock. She’s a child. She’s lost both of her parents, she has no one.”

"She has you. Clearly,” he spits and Mycroft sighs again, but when he speaks, his tone is laced with annoyance.

"Do you really think I'm the Holmes John Watson wants his daughter with? Perhaps I should procure a copy of her birth certificate to be sure.”

Sherlock leans back. “What does that mean?”

But Mycroft remains silent, giving him an infuriating look in the mirror that seems to say _Wouldn’t you like to know?_

Bastard.

“Rosamund said she heard gunshots,” Mycroft murmurs and Sherlock’s world upends itself.

“You think he’s been shot?” he manages after a moment.

“I know he has,” Mycroft replies as he stares at a tablet that seems to have magically appeared in his hand. “Puddle of blood found at the scene was just confirmed to belong to one John H. Watson.”

Sherlock drums his fingers on his knee and presses his fist to his lips once more, closing his eyes and pretending he can still feel the press of John’s palm on his skin.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Mycroft,” he begins, and the man in question straightens, because it’s never _Mycroft._ It’s always _Brother-mine_ or _Blood_ or just _You._ “Did Mary do this?”

Mycroft looks down and pretends to fiddle on the tablet, but giving up the charade, he meets Sherlock’s gaze in the mirror. “Yes, we believe she did.”

_“Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step, I swear I will kill you.”_

_“No, Mrs. Watson, you won’t."_

“Take me to the crime,” he whispers, shaking his head to dislodge unwanted ghosts and phantom pains.

The rest of the ride passes in silence. Rosamund wakes after 30 minutes or so, but she can feel the tension in the car and so she stares out of the window, occasionally playing with a silver chain around her neck.

Sherlock pretends he’s the only one in the vehicle, trying to get his Mind Palace in order. It’s been so long since he’s had to use it for something more malicious than honey tampering at the local fair.

“ - lock. _Sherlock._ ”

“Hm, what?” He comes back to himself to realize the car is stopped and Mycroft is looking at him like he’s (god forbid) _worried._ “Well, what is it?”

He expects a snarky response, but all he gets is a simple, quiet: “We’re here.”

“Ah.” He glances out the window to find that they’ve parked outside a modest townhouse in some suburb whose name he honestly can’t be bothered to learn. He opens the car door and breathes in the London air, surreptitiously stretching his knee and wincing as it pops yet remains stiff.

The road is quiet and the cars parked on it are non-descript. No doubt, countless government agents are watching his every movement at this very moment.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, glancing meaningfully through the window at Rosamund before greeting his brother’s gaze over the roof of the car. “Are you ready for this?”

And he doesn’t just mean the task at hand. He means the work in general, John Watson in particular, and all that that entails.

_“We’ve had a scan. We’re pretty sure it’s a girl.”_

“I guess we’ll find out,” he says, shutting the car door and sweeping up the path.

“He was never happy, you know,” Mycroft calls and Sherlock halts, hands balling into fists in his pockets as he slowly turns.

“What?” He tries to lace the question with disdain, but it comes out small and weak instead. _Christ._

“That afternoon, five years ago. You said, ‘He’s happy.’ It was why you left.”

Sherlock swallows but it does nothing to ease the tightness in his throat.

“He was never happy.”

Sherlock doesn’t say anything ( _can’t_ say anything), but he doesn’t nod either. He merely stares hard at his brother, because after everything they’ve been through, he must _know_ that this is one area he will not tolerate his opinions on.

But it’s a seed. It’s a seed of a doubt that is already starting to grow, so Sherlock gathers his coat around him and turns on his heel, heading into a house just waiting for him to discover its memories, its stories. Its secrets.  

Evidence of just how happy John was - or wasn’t - without him.


	6. Mycroft

Considering he hasn’t slept a wink all night, Mycroft will not begrudge himself a travel mug full of strong coffee for the ride to Sussex. London traffic will be a nightmare as it is, leaving at the hour they are, but needs must and his need is unimpeachable. 

He holds the car door open for Rosamund Watson to slide in and he enters after her, taking pride in the fact that his driver doesn’t shift gears until the child’s seat-belt is firmly buckled.

She is quiet, but by no means a wilting flower. Surely the offspring of John Watson and Mary Morstan would be anything but. He looks forward to seeing the unstoppable force that is Sherlock Holmes meet the immovable object Rosamund Watson is shaping up to be. 

In due time, of course. 

He busies himself with his tablet, reading the latest update from Lady Smallwood and waiting until the city disappears in the rearview mirror before turning his attention once more to the girl beside him. 

She hasn’t said a whole lot, murmuring only that his coffee smelled like the kind her father made, before continuing to look out the window. She’s small for her age, but that’s to be expected given her parentage. 

He clears his throat to get her attention and folds his hands demurely in his lap. 

“Rosamund, can you tell me what happened last night? Anything you can recall.” 

She fiddles with a chain around her neck and stares at the back of the leather seat in front of her, but her voice is steady when she begins to recount her story.

“Daddy came into my room. He said bad people were coming. He had me hide in the crawl space, even though it was dark, and he told me to call you - to wait one hour after it got quiet and to call Mycroft Holmes. I heard - ” she trails off and bites her lip, showing vulnerability for the first time since she stumbled into his care. 

“You heard what, Rosamund?” He uses his most gentle tone to coax the words from her mouth. 

“Gunshots.”

“How many?” 

“I don’t know. Two, I think.” 

Mycroft nods and quickly types a note to Lady Smallwood. They’re still waiting for the ballistics report, but it’s helpful to know how many bullets they’re looking for. 

“Is my Daddy dead?” She looks up at him as her eyes swim and something in his chest twists. He refuses to acknowledge it’s his heart. 

“No, my dear. I do not believe he is.” The endearment falls from his lips without thought and he finds he does not mind the taste of it on his tongue. Perhaps sentiment can make an exception for Rosamund Watson. “Your father is one of the strongest and bravest men I’ve ever met.” 

She blinks, but the tears still don’t fall. “Ever?” 

“Ever,” he replies, knowing it’s the truth he speaks.  _ Ridiculous and stubborn, but strong and brave.  _ “Rosamund, did your father ever tell you why he wanted you to call me?” 

Her eyes flick up to his as she plays with her chain once more. “He said you were family.” 

And Mycroft can’t explain the feeling he gets in the middle of his chest - like someone has poured hot tea into his veins and it’s spreading throughout his circulatory system - but it’s not entirely unpleasant. 

“Are you my uncle?” she asks, completely ignorant of his inner turmoil. 

“Yes,” he finally croaks, clearing his throat before trying again. “Yes, I suppose I am.” 

_ John Watson. You are full of surprises.  _

They eventually make their way down the dirt lane, greenery coddling them on either side. He’d seen satellite photos of his brother’s home, but somehow, he expected it to be… more. 

It’s small to be sure, but not claustrophobic. If he were the type to use those sort of words, he might even call it quaint. They pull to a stop in front of the cottage and he opens the door with, not quite a huff, but it’s close. He’d rather be anywhere but here, truth be told. 

“Is this purgatory?” the child asks and he can’t help it - he snorts. He honestly didn’t expect her to remember that conversation. 

He sees the curtain flutter in the front window and he holds his breath as he glances in the car. “I think we’re about to find out.” He closes the door and begins to make his way up the walk as his brother’s voice bellows across the tidy garden: 

“I had one rule!” 

Purgatory, it is then. 

The years have not exactly been kind to Sherlock. Though, upon further inspection, perhaps they have. His hair is longer and his chin darker, but the purple half moons under his eyes have disappeared. There’s a lightness in his irises and an ease of the tension in his shoulders that Mycroft can’t deny wasn’t there before. 

He hates that he has to shatter it all:

“Time to come out of retirement, baby brother.” 

He can see Sherlock’s gaze clock the child in the car before boring holes through his skin and muscle and marrow. “Where is he?” 

Mycroft swallows, but the words still stick in his mouth. After all, it’s not often he utters them. “I don’t know.” 

Their reunion proves to be… tedious, but welcome. He’s more interested in his brother’s reaction to the child trailing in his wake than he is anything else, and Sherlock doesn’t disappoint. His eyes are drawn to her like a bee to honey, sussing out her temperament, cataloguing her features, inevitably wondering how their lives fit together now that their worlds have finally collided. 

It was only a matter of time, despite his brother’s departing words: 

_ “He’s happy.”  _

_ “Is he?”  _

Mycroft is just as surprised as anyone that Rosamund seems to know who Sherlock is, or at least that he’s a detective, but it still doesn’t shake whatever film has settled over Sherlock’s existence. Mycroft wants to wipe it away like steam on a mirror but he has a sneaking suspicion it’s decidedly more stubborn than that. Which is why he needles and needles until his brother cracks ( _ “And we’re sitting around having  _ **_tea_ ** _?” What the hell is wrong with you?” _ ), and it’s the first time since Anthea came running in, disturbing his solitude, that he finally feels hope. 

“There you are. I was worried we’d lost you for good.” 

Sherlock stomps upstairs to pack, as Mycroft knew he would, so he leaves Rosamund to her toast while he steps outside to make a call, inspecting every surface as he goes. What he finds surprises him. There are wildflowers in a mason jar on the windowsill, carefully fluffed throw pillows on the sofa, and, for god’s sake,  _ novels _ on the shelf. Sherlock is going soft in his old age. 

Upon further introspection, though, he thinks that perhaps ‘soft’ is what his baby brother has been all along. 

How ignorant he is. 

The sun briefly blinds him as he steps outside, mocking their petty problems with its beauty. The garden is in better shape than he expected, but Sherlock always did have a way with weeds. With a sigh he uses to cover up his trepidation, he pulls out his mobile and selects one of the few contacts in his Favorites list. 

She picks up after the third ring. “Hello?” 

“Mrs. Hudson, it’s Mycroft Holmes.” 

He hasn’t been in touch with her much - nothing beyond the monthly rental payments and even those are handled by Anthea. 

“Dear me, it must be an occasion. To what do I owe the honor?” she clips and he ignores the slight sting her admonishment brings. He loves her because she loves Sherlock and that’s enough reason as any. 

Which brings him back to John Watson and the whole reason for his calling. 

“Mrs. Hudson, this may come as a bit of a shock, but Sherlock’s returned.” 

There’s silence on the other end of the phone and he waits what he considers an appropriate amount of time before continuing. 

“He’s… actually been back for some time, but living in the country. I apologize for the nature of this reveal, but circumstances beyond my control have intervened. I fear he’ll have to come back to Baker Street for a stretch of time.” 

He hears her exhale harshly and wonders if she’s been holding her breath all this time. 

“Is he okay?” Her voice is tremulous, but stern. It reminds him of Mummy. 

“He is. There are changes, of course. He had a long road to recovery when he returned and that journey is not over.” 

“Of course he can come back to Baker Street. It’s his home. Always has been.” 

He nearly smiles. “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. We’ll be by later this evening.” 

“Mycroft,” and it’s her hesitation that has him guessing her question just before it leaves her lips: “Does John know?” 

Ah. He had wanted to leave that particular portion of the conversation until they could speak in person. After all, how does one tell a woman that she’s getting one son back only to lose another? 

“He’s been taken.” It’s blunt. Direct. But it does the job. She inhales sharply and Mycroft almost feels the echo of it behind his ribs. 

“Rosie?” 

“She’s here. With us. John had given her instructions to call me before it happened. We got to her in time.”

“Oh thank God,” she breathes, and he must remind himself that, though Sherlock has been a hermit and he himself tied to his desk, John has lived a life. Has woven people in and out of the fabric of his days and his daughter’s until a tapestry had formed of family and connection and love. 

And in that moment, something he remembered reading in a file comes to him. A tidbit he had glossed over in the initial adrenaline spike of John’s taking: Rosamund calls her ‘Nana.’ 

Nana Hudson.

He should have called sooner. 

But before he can offer his apologies, she’s speaking again, voice tight with anger and anguish. “Did she do this?”

Martha Hudson is not the first to ask that question nor does Mycroft believe she’ll be the last. He doesn’t know what John has told her about Mary Morstan, but she’s no fool. Perhaps he is, though, if he didn’t realize they all seemed to have been waiting for this particular house of cards to fall. John was the only one who was prepared for it. 

“We’ll all be there tonight,” he assures, because he knows that Mrs. Hudson will need to lay hands on those she holds dear herself. Will need to feed them up and ply them with tea and cocoon them in knitted blankets that have soaked up too much perfume. 

It’s the first of two of the most draining conversations he has that day ( _ that week, that year _ ). The second comes much later - after he watches his brother pick through John Watson’s house, looking for clue after clue of his whereabouts, because where John Watson goes, Sherlock Holmes must surely follow. Watches him kneel by a pool of John Watson’s blood and stop just short of dipping his finger in. Watches him study the family pictures dotting the walls and end tables. Watches him observe the dishes in the sink (whiskey tumbler, a plate with biscuit crumbs). Watches him leave the bedroom until the last possible second, when he could no longer put off entering that veritable minefield of truth and consequence. 

Mycroft does not ask him what he found there. 

No, the second conversation comes after they’ve returned to Baker Street, after Mrs. Hudson has opened the door and not (shockingly) burst into tears. After she’s gathered Rosie into her arms and pressed lipsticked kisses on her temple. After she’s straightened once more and run a hand through Sherlock’s longer hair, letting her palm rest on his cheek with a look that seems to say  _ Welcome home  _ and  _ What took you so long?  _

His inspection of the Watson house had not been as fruitful as any of them would have liked.  There’s a lack of evidence to be sure, but the gears in Sherlock’s brain have not been forced to whir as quickly as he needs them to in a very long while. Mycroft knows it’s only a matter of time, but time is not on their side. And Sherlock knows it. 

It had been a… trying afternoon for all involved, particularly his brother and Rosamund. They’re all feeling a bit raw. 

Mycroft tries hard to gauge Sherlock’s disposition but he vacillates between a puppy that’s been kicked and a snake that’s a moment away from striking. He doesn’t even take the time to look around the flat he called home for so many years, too busy pulling at his hair while Rosamund quietly watches from where she’s tucked up against Mrs. Hudson’s side on the sofa. 

They eventually go down to her flat for some food because Rosamund needs to eat, despite her protestations, and when they return, her belly is full and her eyes are sleepy. The minute she goes up to change into pajamas, Mrs. Hudson’s frail stoicism crumbles and she dissolves into tears she’s been keeping at bay all evening. 

“Don’t mind me,” she mutters, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief Mycroft hands her. 

Sherlock looks like he wants to curl up in a ball in the corner - displays of emotion always did frighten him - but he walks over and gently takes her in his arms, murmuring something in her ear that’s only for the two of them to hear. Whatever it is, it has Mrs. Hudson nodding and cupping his cheek once more before heading back downstairs to cry in peace. 

Mycroft watches Sherlock watch her go and he feels like he should offer some sort of brotherly comfort, but then again, that’s never been their forte. 

“Sherlock, you can’t blame yourself.” 

“I don’t blame myself,” he says quietly, turning to him with a quiet fury in his eyes. “I blame you.” 

“Me?” he blurts, and he briefly wonders if this is what John Watson felt like when he had laid a similar accusation at his feet so many years ago: 

_ “Nothing is out of your hands. You have your fingers in everything.” _

_ “Thanks to you, my brother’s future, regrettably, is.” _

_ “Me?” _

Sherlock’s harsh voice snaps him back to the present. “You said he wasn’t happy!"

“Yes.” 

And finally, the thing Mycroft has been waiting for all day, ever since Sherlock walked into John Watson’s home with hope and walked out with none, comes to pass. 

Sherlock breaks. 

“Why did you let me believe he was?! Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Mycroft squares his shoulders. “Would you have listened?” 

Sherlock remains silent. 

“It wasn’t my decision to make - ”

“The one time you don’t meddle! You meddle in everything!”

“I was trying to respect your wishes!” Mycroft finally yells. “For  _ once _ in my life!”  

“And now John Watson might be dead!” 

“He’s not.” 

Sherlock scoffs. “How do you know?” 

“Because  _ you _ would know.” 

And with that, all of the fight seeps out of Sherlock and he collapses into his chair, dropping his head into his hands. His breaths are ragged and wet, and Mycroft closes his eyes, every noise striking him like the lash of a whip. Releasing a heavy sigh, he runs a hand through his hair and adjusts his tie before going over and placing a hesitant hand on Sherlock’s shaking shoulder. His chest warms when Sherlock doesn’t immediately shake it off. 

“Courage, dear heart,” he whispers, squeezing gently. “Courage.” 

Sherlock nods and scrubs his hands over his face, wincing as he adjusts his knee.  

“Go get to know your goddaughter. If she’s anything like her parents, I’m sure she’s been listening at the top of the stairs for the last five minutes.” 

Sure enough, they hear the pitter patter of little feet hurrying back into the bedroom and Sherlock can’t help but smile briefly before swallowing thickly. The look of worry on his face is uncharacteristic, but then again, many things are about this older version of his brother. 

“What if she doesn’t like me?” he asks quietly and Mycroft smiles, softening his next words. 

“No one likes you, Sherlock.” 

He smiles sadly. “Except John.” 

“And she’s John’s, so what does that tell you?” He offers a hand and Sherlock stares at it for a moment before taking it and allowing himself to be hauled on unsteady feet. His limp is more pronounced after the day’s emotionally draining activities and Mycroft makes a mental note to force his brother see his old physical therapist while he’s back in town. John won’t appreciate Sherlock neglecting himself, even if it is in the spirit of saving him. 

Sherlock smooths down his shirt front to give his trembling hands something to do. He’s faced megalomaniacs and psychopaths, but who knew it would be a six-year-old that would be his undoing? 

He listens as Sherlock slowly climbs the stairs and waits until the telltale creak of the bedroom door shutting before he lets his shoulders drop and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

He needs someone that knows Sherlock, that knows John and all of their history. That can be a crutch for a brother who won’t accept the assistance Mycroft is trying haphazardly to offer. At the moment, he feels like a bike with only one good wheel. So, with a sigh and a prayer to a deity he doesn’t believe in, he pulls out his mobile and dials yet another number. 

It connects after two rings.

“Detective Inspector, it’s Mycroft Holmes. I believe I need your help.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Don't fret, we will return to the Watson house. Just not with Mycroft's POV.


	7. Rosie

_“Rosamund, this is my brother, Sherlock Holmes.”_

Oh. She knows that name.

“Like the detective?”

She’s not sure what she expected, but it’s not him. Daddy had once tried to explain what he looked like but she didn’t understand why his cheekbones were so important at the time. She kinda gets it now. He’s missing the coat that her father once said was like a superhero cape, but the hair is the same. Messy and curly and just a bit wild. She loves it. It makes her think of when she was small enough to ride on her father’s shoulders (she still is, though she claims not to be) and used to run her fingers through his hair and make it stick up straight. He never minded.

Her chest hurts so much she gasps for breath.

“The very same.”

“You don’t look like you climb over rooftops,” she says, nearly accusingly because Daddy never lies, but the so-called detective merely replies, “No, not for some time.” He wears a smile but she can see the hurt in his eyes and she feels bad. She saw him limp across the room. Maybe he did once climbs buildings.

Maybe he fell.

He gives her jam and toast and declares he’s going to get her Daddy back in a tone that gives her no choice but to believe it. While he goes to pack and Mr. Holmes goes outside, she slides off the bench at the kitchen table and wanders into the living room, gravitating toward the bookcase next to the still burning fire. Most of the names she can’t pronounce, but she recognizes one: _Gray’s Anatomy_. She fell off the monkey bars last year and broke her arm. Her father pulled out the old book from when he was in school and showed her exactly which bones she had broken. She was fascinated.

She runs her finger over the gold lettering in the spine, before a piece of paper sticking out on top catches her eye. She pulls the book off the dusty shelf with a grunt and lets it fall open to the page in question. A picture of her father stares back at her, or rather he stares at the man at his side, and she gasps, little fingers already reaching for the newspaper that’s yellowing slightly with age. She traces over her father’s face - he looks younger. Not so many lines around his eyes. Not so much silver in his hair. But it’s still him and she feels an acute ache in her chest - one that hasn’t quite left since he left her last night.

She wonders if the clipping is stuck in the chapter about the heart on purpose.

She should put it back - Mycroft (Mr. Holmes The Sterner, in her mind) and Sherlock (Mr. Holmes, the Stranger) will return soon and she doesn’t want to be caught snooping ( _“It’s rude, Rosie,”_ her father says to her.)

With reluctance, she returns to the kitchen and finishes her toast, but her mind is still on the photo in the book. Daddy stared at Sherlock the way he sometimes stares at her.

“Rosamund?” a voice asks, and she jumps, dropping her toast to the plate as the man himself stands in the doorway. “Let’s be off.”

Funny that, in her head, Mycroft Holmes is Mr. Holmes, but Sherlock is just that. Just Sherlock. Her detective. And if there’s one thing Daddy taught her, it’s to follow the Detective.

She slides out of her seat and follows the man through the living room, past the bookshelf with the newspaper clipping, past the spot in front of the fireplace that looks like it’s waiting for a dog, into the sunlight that seems way too cheery on such a sad day.

She doesn’t want to get back into the car, but the car will take her to London and London is where Daddy is. At least she hopes that’s where she is. She’s seen enough James Bonds to know that bad guys can get places far away quickly.

Everyone is being unusually quiet and she realizes it’s because they don’t want to talk in front of her. She can tell when adults need to have adult conversations. Perhaps she can pretend to sleep, but exhaustion is catching up with her. Her eyelids feel heavy and the leather of the seat is nice and Sherlock’s shampoo smells good. Sure enough, Sherlock snaps a minute later, making her jump.  

“You could have just called, instead of driving all the way out here and wasting precious time.”

Mr. Holmes sounds bored when he replies. “Would you have answered?”

“Yes.”

“Would you immediately have hung up?”

“Probably.”

“What. Happened,” he bites out.

“In a bit.”

She really wants to stay awake because she knows they’re going to talk about her father, but it was a long night and an even longer morning and the leather seat really is very comfortable. She feels her head loll, not quite sure when her eyes closed, but the next time she wakes, the suffocating silence is back and she knows that all of the important words were said while she was sleeping.

She distinctly doesn’t pout because only babies do that, though Daddy catches her at it occasionally. Instead, she merely frowns and stares out of the window, playing with the chain around her neck her father gave her for her last birthday.  

She knows this neighborhood. They’re nearly home.

She always thought of her house as the safest place in the world. It’s where they built blanket forts and had movie nights and dessert before dinner on evenings when Mummy was out with her friends. But she’s never seen her street so quiet. Even when the Robertsons had their domestic down the block, the road was full of police cars and flashing lights. Now it looks like that zombie show she accidentally saw on the telly before Daddy came in and switched it off. Still gave her nightmares for weeks.  

They pull to a stop and Sherlock gets out. Mr. Holmes follows and they exchange some words over the car but they’re muffled by the closed doors. She watches through the window as Sherlock makes his way to the flat, but Mr. Holmes remains near the car. She scoots across the seat and hooks her fingers around the metal handle, still warm from Sherlock’s touch, and pulls. For the amount of people mulling around her yard alone, they’re remarkably quiet, and she shivers in the cool breeze that finds its way under her jumper.

“Rosamund, stay here please,” Mr. Holmes instructs before heading for the door himself with a final look back at the lady from last night who’s magically appeared at Rosie’s side.

She knows they’re trying to protect her by shielding her, and considering what happened last time she was here, it makes sense. But that’s the thing about being tiny.

Everyone underestimates you.

She thinks of her father and that something sharp hits her in her chest again, causing her to gasp. The lady, Anthea, glances down at her in concern, but she turns away, blinking her eyes quickly and willing herself not to cry.

_“People will underestimate you all your life, darling girl,” Daddy says as he crouches down and brushes her hair out of her face._

_“They will?”_

_“Yep. They do it with me.”_

_“People underestimate_ **_you_** _?”_

_Daddy snorts and smiles. “They do.” Then he winks. “But usually not for long.” He cups her face in his hands and she feels so small, so safe. So loved. “So when it happens to you, because it will… Remind them why that’s a mistake.”_

She didn’t get long to pack and being so close yet so far from the things that remind her of her father feels like it’s pulling her apart. She wants to behave, because she’s good at that (relatively) but she is a Watson through and through and Watsons are brave ( _“Watsons are trouble,” Daddy says as he tugs on her plait_ ). She was in the middle of reading Matilda, another gift for her last birthday, and she desperately wants it. She wants the comforting presence of a fictional Miss Honey if she can’t have her very real father.

It’s not far - she knows where she left it: on the side table in the living room. She and Daddy had read a chapter before watching a film (he does a great Miss Trunchbull). She’d ask Sherlock, but he’s already disappeared inside. His brother, too. Perhaps Anthea can help, but she doesn’t know her and she’s wary of strangers at the moment. At least strangers without the last name ‘Holmes.’

_“Remind them why that’s a mistake.”_

She’s not sure that this is what Daddy had in mind when he said that, but she goes for it anyway. ( _"Watsons are trouble.”_ )

Weaving around legs much longer than hers, she keeps her head down and her feet marching, all but barrelling through the front door that someone helpfully left open.

At six-years-old, there are many things Rosie Watson doesn’t account for. She doesn’t account for how food gets on her table or how new clothes get in her drawers or a plethora of other things that just _happen_ at home. But right now, in this moment, as she stands in the doorway of the safest place on earth, she doesn’t account for the bullet holes in the walls or the puddle of dried blood staining the cream-colored carpet brown.

_“Remind them why that’s a mistake.”_

This. This was a mistake. She thought she could be big. She thought she could handle it just like Daddy would, but she can’t. She can’t, she can’t, and tears are starting to well and her breath is short and sharp, tunneling her vision and causing her ears to buzz.

She thinks she may pass out, which she’s never done before and it’s all a bit scary, but then arms circle around her and lift her deftly, turning her away from the puddle of blood and pressing her wet face (when did she start crying?) into a strong shoulder.

She lets herself shake and shake and cry and cry because this was a mistake and Daddy is gone and all she wanted was the book he gave her. Noise is coming from somewhere and she’s a little worried it might be from her. The fabric beneath her face is soaked and her fingers clutch at the back of the collar of the person whose arms she’s in.

It isn’t until she hears the pop of the car door with the wind biting at her cheeks, slapping her into focus again, that she realizes the person carrying her has a limp.

_Sherlock._

If anything, it makes her hold on tighter.

He bends down and sets her down on the seat, but she doesn’t unwind her arms from around his neck, so he shifts her over and slides in next to her, pulling her tight to his body. She lets go only so she can burrow into his side and wrap an arm across his waist, thinking that she’ll stop shaking if she just holds on tight enough.

“This was a mistake,” Sherlock says and his voice rumbles in his chest, louder than the noises that still escape her body, whimpers and sniffles that she doesn’t recall ever making. Even when she broke her arm.

_“Remind them why that’s a mistake.”_

“Indeed,” Mr. Holmes somberly replies from the front seat.

“I want to go home,” she murmurs, voice muffled.

“We are,” Sherlock murmurs, tugging her tighter to his side.

But they can’t be because they just came from home. What she doesn’t realize is that Sherlock is bringing her to the next best thing:

_Nana._

221 always seemed dark and a tad dreary to her, at least the hallway. Nana’s flat was cheery with its pink curtains and neverending offerings of tea and biscuits, but she and Daddy never did go upstairs. She snuck up once, when she was little (well, littler) and Daddy got angry. It was strange, though. He wasn’t angry at her. It was like he was angry at the room and she had no idea why. It didn’t seem all that special or even dangerous. It was just a room with fun patterned wallpaper and a skull on the mantle, which frightened her at first before she realized someone had stuck a cigar in his mouth and then it just made her giggle.

_“Rosie, what are you doing up here?”_

_“‘Sploring.”_

_“Well, let’s finish exploring Nana’s flat.”_

_“But there’s nothing left to ‘splore there!”_

_“_ **_Ex_ ** _p_ _lore.”_

_“Oh look! A microscope!”_

Daddy had had a small smile on his face by the time he finally wrangled her back downstairs, but it was sad. Very sad.

She never went exploring again.

The car pulls to a stop and Sherlock opens the door, scooping Rosie into his lap once more so he can slide them both out of the car together. She’s too big to be carried (or so she’s argued many times), but in this moment, she doesn’t mind. In this moment, it’s necessary. _  
_

She hears the door open and she turns her head just enough to catch sight of Nana in the entryway looking older than she ever has. And she was pretty old to begin with.

Rosie wiggles enough that Sherlock puts her down on shaky legs on the pavement. She’s up the steps and vaguely remembering to be gentle as she barrels into Nana’s waiting arms, burying her face in her neck and inhaling her familiar perfume.

“Oh, love,” Nana whispers, pressing kisses on the side of her head and rubbing a hand up and down her back. “Come on, then,” she addresses to the adults still standing on the stoop. “I’ve got the kettle boiled. You look like you could use a cuppa.”

The thought of being carried by Sherlock again is nice, but she’s six. Just because her world is falling apart doesn’t mean she can’t handle a set of stairs. She lets go of Nana, but takes hold of her proffered hand instead.

“Well go ahead,” Nana says to Sherlock who hesitates in the foyer. Then she reaches up and runs her free hand through his hair, gently cupping his cheek. And for the first time since Rosie’s known him, Sherlock looks like he might cry.

It kind of makes her want to cry again too. She’s not sure why.

They all go up to 221B and it’s been almost two years since she was last up here. It looks exactly the same - crazy wallpaper, microscope on the table, skull on the mantle. Sadly the cigar has fallen out of his mouth. Nana ushers her over to the sofa, which she sinks into, cuddling into Nana’s side and watching as Sherlock and Mr. Holmes look about the flat once more.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Mr. Holmes drawls but Sherlock reaches out and flicks his ear, which would normally make Rosie smile, but she’s just so tired.

“Thank you,” he says to Nana, looking again like he might cry, but then he spins about and gives the skull a little pat before pressing his fingers to his temple and going utterly still.

 _Mind Palace_ , she remembers.

_“What’s a mind palace?” she asks, playing with the fraying hem of Daddy’s t-shirt as they sit side-by-side on her bed._

_“It’s like... the container you keep your legos in. They’re separated to keep the different sizes and colors and shapes organized, yeah?”_

_“Uh huh.”_

_“It’s a bit like that. But for information, like different types of ash or the body’s rate of decomposition.”_

_“What’s decom-sition?”_

_Daddy seems to freeze, eyes going a bit like a bug. “Um… nothing, sweetheart. But that’s what the Detective uses to keep his facts in order. He’s brilliant.”_

_“Wow,” she breathes, frowning and scrunching up her nose, trying to organize the thoughts in her brain into imaginary colorful containers. Favorite breakfasts in one, best friends in another._

She finds her nose scrunching sympathetically as she watches him pace the length of the living room, pausing here and there, but not really seeing anything. He finally looks like a detective, like _her_ Detective, whirling about the flat and tugging at his hair. Mr. Holmes and Nana watch him quietly, but carefully, and Rosie knows that this is not an infrequent occurrence. She just wishes the first case she saw him work wasn’t her father’s.

Her stomach gives a rumble loud enough to draw attention and she slouches lower on the sofa, but Nana is up and all but hauling her off downstairs where she says she has bolognese warming on the stove. Knowing that she cooked Rosie’s favorite makes that uneasy knot that’s been in the pit of her stomach even heavier. Things really must be bad then if spag bol is on the menu and it’s not her birthday.

She shovels more into her mouth than she thought was possible but then she remembers that the last thing she ate was toast at Sherlock’s earlier that day, so she supposes an appetite isn’t all that surprising. The knot is still there though, the anxiety and worry and fear. Couple all of that up with a helping of spaghetti and Rosie finds her eyelids fighting with gravity.

Nana wipes her mouth with a damp napkin, something she hasn’t done since Rosie became able to do it herself, and gently pushes her hair away from her face, cupping her cheeks in her hands across the table.

Rosie realizes it’s the first time she’s been alone with someone she knows since Daddy left her the night before ( _"_ _Oh my brave girl.”_ ). She finds her lower lip wobbling and her throat closing, and she doesn’t want to cry, she’s six after all, but Nana seems to know that and merely tilts her head and runs her thumb across Rosie’s face, catching her tears with the pad of her finger.

“You know, your Daddy is one of the bravest men I’ve ever met,” she says simply. Like it’s just any other Tuesday.

She knows her Daddy is brave so she doesn’t reply. She’s not sure she could even if she wanted to. Her throat is still working very hard to not make a sound.

“And if there’s anyone who loves your Daddy as much as you and I do, it’s Sherlock Holmes.”

“Really?” she manages and Nana nods.

“He loves your father very much.”

“Does Daddy love him too?”

Nana smiles, but it’s sad. There’s a lot of sad smiles today. “For years.”

But Rosie frowns because she’s only known him through stories. She didn’t think he existed at all. “Where’s he been?”

Nana pulls her hands back and begins clearing the table. “Protecting you.”

“Me?”

“Us. All of us. He’s very good at that.”

“But Daddy still got taken.”

Nana stops and leans over, tilting Rosie’s chin up until their eyes meet. “He did. Because someone who was supposed to love your Daddy did something very bad.”

And Rosie sees it then - the fire in her eyes. It only makes an appearance when she’s done something particularly foolish or dangerous - but never like this.

She has a feeling she knows who Nana is talking about, but the thought makes her feel sick again and she suddenly wishes she hadn’t eaten so much.

“I want to lie down,” she murmurs.

“Okay, darling,” Nana whispers, fire gone, before tapping her nose and holding her hands out to pull Rosie up.

They walk back up to 221B hand-in-hand and Nana leaves her on the landing so she can head up to the bedroom upstairs to change. The bag that she packed the night before is already waiting for her on the neatly made bed and she pulls out her pajamas and slowly changes, feeling like every one of her limbs suddenly weighs two stone. She pulls the covers back and pauses, remembering that she didn’t brush her teeth, but Daddy isn’t here to force her to, and she thinks it’s okay to let it slide for one night.

She hears voices rise and fall and so she tiptoes over to the edge of the landing, slowly getting down on her tummy and resting her chin on her folded arms to see what she can hear. She’s been at the top of her own steps listening to Mum and Daddy many times like this.

_“You said he wasn’t happy!”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Why did you let me believe he was?!_ ” Sherlock yells, causing Rosie to jump. _“Why didn’t you tell me?”_

_“Would you have listened?”_

Who’s not happy? Daddy? But he always seemed happy with her.

_“It wasn’t my decision to make - ”_

_“The one time you don’t meddle! You meddle in everything!”_

_“I was trying to respect your wishes! For_ **_once_ ** _in my life!”_

_“And now John Watson might be dead!”_

She audibly gasps and claps a hand over her mouth, tears springing up again because they never seem to be far today. Blood is rushing in her ears and she blinks, feeling the hot splash of water on her cheek.

Daddy can’t be dead. He’s all she has. He just can’t.

_Blood on cream carpets. Bullet holes on painted walls._

_… “If she’s anything like her parents, I’m sure she’s been listening at the top of the stairs for the last five minutes.”_

She doesn’t hear much but she hears that, so she hops up and hurries back into the bedroom, throwing herself on the mattress and tugging the covers up to her chin, wiping her face clean with the sheet. There’s no way either of them will believe she’s been there the whole time - her exit was nowhere near James Bond-levels of stealth - but Daddy frequently says she’s lucky she’s adorable so maybe that will work in her favor this time.

The footsteps on the stairs are slow. And uneven - Sherlock then. Maybe his limbs also feel like they weigh two stone each.

He eventually appears in the doorway looking unsure and nervous for the first time since they met. They eye each other for a moment before Rosie slowly scoots over and flicks her gaze to the space next to her on the bed. Sherlock takes it for the invitation it is and slowly sits down next to her.

The flat is painfully quiet and, finally, Rosie asks the question that’s been beating at her heart ever since she heard two gunshots and not much else.

“Is my Daddy dead?” she whispers.

Sherlock briefly looks like he’s in pain, before he slowly shakes his head. “No.”

“But how can you be sure?”

Her detective sighs. “Because my brother was right. _I_ would know.”

“How?”

“Here,” he murmurs, pressing the tips of his fingers to the center of his chest. “I’d feel it here.”

That makes sense. “So would I.”

He smiles faintly. “Yes, I believe you would.” He glances around the room for a moment, eyes flitting on things here and there, taking everything in. Storing it in his Mind Palace. “Your father used to sleep here.”

She blinks her eyes wide. “Really?” She did _not_ know that. “He used to live here?”

“Yes, with me.”

“Oh.”

“Long before you were born,” he murmurs, looking sad again.

She knows there’s no way to still smell her father on the sheets, but she tries anyway, finding comfort in the gesture regardless.

“What’s your father like?” Sherlock suddenly asks and she frowns.

“Don’t you know him?”

“I do. Very well, but…” he trails off and clears his throat, “it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him.”

“Do you miss him?”

Sherlock swallows hard. “I do.”

She nods and looks down, tracing the faded pattern on the bedspread with her finger. “Me too.”

“As I said, I knew him before you were born. I don’t know him as a…”

“As a daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s very good,” she says succinctly with a little head nod and he huffs out a chuckle. 

“I don’t doubt it.” He inhales deeply and holds his breath for a moment before slowly letting it out. “Listen, Rosamund - ”

“Rosie,” she interrupts.

“Excuse me?”

“Daddy calls me Rosie.”

“Oh,” he says, blinking rapidly. “Would you... like me to do that, too?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay.” He shifts on the bed so he can face her more fully. “Rosie,” he begins again, looking very serious. “I want you to know that I’m going to do everything in my power to get your father back. I know I said it before, but I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it.”

She swallows, but her throat has gone tight again. “I know you will,” she whispers, biting her lower lip to keep it from wobbling. “That’s what you do.”

He looks at little confused at that, but doesn’t argue. Instead he stands and wipes his hands on his trousers.

“Right, well. Do you have everything you need?"

She nods, but then pauses. “Daddy usually tucks me in.”

“Ah,” he says, looking a little lost before pulling the covers up to her chin. “Like that?”

She rolls her eyes, but decides she likes him even more because he doesn’t know typical night-time routines. “The point of tucking someone in is that you’re supposed to _tuck_ them _in_.” He can put it in his Mind Palace.

“Oh well, my mistake,” he says, even as he digs the covers around her body nice and tight, just how she likes it. “Better?”

“Much,” she murmurs, sinking her head into the pillow.

“Light on or off?”

She hesitates, because normally she’d say off, but she doesn’t want to be in the dark very much right now. At home, there’s a small light in the hallway that stays on so she can find her way to the toilet if need be, but this is a strange flat and these are strange people. Not as strange as they used to be, but still.

“Tell you what,” Sherlock says, “how about I turn it off, but I stay out here, just until you fall asleep.”

She doesn’t realize it’s exactly what she needed to hear until he says it, and she feels all warm inside, watching him watch her. “Okay,” she whispers. “That would be good.”

“Good,” he echos, reaching up, flicking the switch, and casting the room into darkness. He leaves the door open though, and true to his word, she hears him limp to the top step and slowly lower himself down.

And before she knows it, she’s drifting off, feeling safe for the first time in 24 hours. He’s not her Dad, but he’s her detective, and frankly, for the moment, that’s the next best thing.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Title comes from W.H. Auden's "September 1, 1939."


End file.
